Helena Holmström Olsson
Professor

Presentation

Helena Holmström Olsson is a professor at the Department of Computer Science and Media Technology at Malmö University. She received her PhD in 2004 from the Department of Applied IT at the University of Gothenburg. Her research is conducted within the framework of Software Center, a collaboration involving 16 companies (including Ericsson, Volvo Cars, AB Volvo, SAAB, Tetra Pak, Axis Communications, Grundfos, Bosch, Siemens, Jeppesen, Scania, DEIF, and Zenseact) and five Swedish universities (the University of Gothenburg, Chalmers, Malmö University, Linköping University, and Mälardalen University). Her work involves close collaboration with all these companies, focusing on how they develop systems, how they can improve and optimize their development processes, and how they organize themselves to best meet the demands of a rapidly changing market and new technologies (software, data, and artificial intelligence). Of particular interest is how these companies leverage customer and product data to drive innovation—specifically, how both end-user feedback and automatically generated product data are collected, analyzed, and used as a basis for the continuous improvement of existing functionality, as well as for creating new customer value and fostering innovation.

Another major research interest is the interplay between actors—specifically, the trend where value creation increasingly relies on collaboration and interaction among multiple parties, requiring companies to develop strategies to manage these dynamics. In her research, Helena assists various companies in positioning themselves within their respective business. ecosystems and identifying mechanisms for collaborating with partners. She also explores how they can maintain existing ecosystems and business models while simultaneously building new ecosystems—and associated business models—around emerging technologies. A prime, highly relevant example is Artificial Intelligence (AI); it challenges major corporations by introducing new players possessing specialized AI expertise who disrupt the established ecosystem. For long-established companies with different core competencies, this necessitates strategies for collaborating with these newcomers to generate new business opportunities while minimizing the risk of losing existing customers or market share to them.

Through Software Center, Helena is also active in a Vinnova-funded competence center—Continuous Digitalization (CoDig)—as well as another Vinnova-funded project: Continuous Compliance.

Helena conducts all her research in close collaboration with industry; her research is empirical, and her findings take the form of guidelines, models, and techniques that companies can use to accelerate their digital transformation and optimize value creation for the customer.